Bob Metcalfe: Investing in Energy with Lessons Learned from Networking

OK. Say you did something like invent and promote the networking standard everyone uses. What do you do next?

How about investing in energy? It’s a big problem and big problems bring big opportunity.

But how?

“The trick,” says Dr. Bob Metcalfe, inventor of ethernet, founder of 3Com, and a Venture Capitalist investing in energy, “If the Internet is any guide, is to bring new technologies to areas where they [incumbents] don’t hold sway.”

It may not be a perfect analogy comparing the Internet to Energy, but it is an instructive one. No one brings those lessons into focus in terms of energy better than Bob Metcalfe. In our conversation, we discuss those lessons, how to innovate in energy, and what to do to retread your career if you’re looking to move from hi-tech to energy.